With the advent of drone aircraft and their ability to carry specialized video cameras that generate 360 degree video material, such material has become more and more widely available. 360° video material (also known as an immersive video or a spherical video) is so-called because the video contains video recordings in all directions about a central point which are recorded at the same time using, e.g., an omnidirectional camera or a collection of individual cameras. This material is usually viewed using virtual reality headsets which, during playback, immerse the viewer in the video and allow him or her to look in any direction that was recorded by the video.
Of course, raw 360° video is not something that users typically want to see. Instead, editing the raw video source material and limiting it to the most interesting scenes is almost universally done. Unfortunately, although easy to use software is widely available for novice uses who want to edit conventional video, editing 360 degree source video material is a completely different undertaking. This is because, first, there is an immense amount of video content that is available for every second of the source material and, additionally and perhaps more importantly, software for editing this material is not provided in an easily accessible and understandable format for the user who might be well versed in standard video editing interfaces.
These realities have led to 360 degree video materials being edited with software that only scratches the surface of the range of video editing functionalities that are available when editing conventional video source material.
Thus, what is needed is a system and method of editing 360 degree video material that provides an intuitive and exact editing process.
Before proceeding to a description of the present invention, however, it should be noted and remembered that the description of the invention which follows, together with accompanying drawings, should not be construed as limiting the invention to the examples (or embodiment) shown and described. This is so because those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains will be able to devise other forms of this invention within the ambit of the appended claims.